The fourteenth century Magistrate’s Palace is the most ancient, noble, public building in Monte San Savino. In the middle there is a tower of the town, 30 meters high. We think the Perugini had built it  since 1339 when they began ruling  Monte San Savino so they put their coat of arms with the griffon on it (now it is no more there). Formerly the Palace and its offices extended as far as today’s Piazza di Monte. The Florentine podestà representatives and some Lords Monte San Savino deputies administrated here the penal and civil justice with their “family” (XVI and XVII century).

In XVIII century more than  40 portraits representing all Prices and Princesses of Monte San Savino were exhibited in the hall of Palazzo Pretorio where Veltroni painted La Pietà. After the offices moved to Palazzo di Monte, the old Palazzo Pretorio was auctioned by the town to set the carabineers’ barracks (1874). Since 1992 it has been the seat of the International University Center.

It’s a three-storey palace with two wings  locking up to the tower, each with two open axes and framed windows on the upper storeys. The access door to the tower was a former window opened in 1681 to light the inner rooms of the public prison, as the date engraved on it reminds. On the shelf there was the “marzocco” on stone of 1506 by the sculptor Biancalana, that now is in the Cassero town museum.

 

Inner: In the conference hall of the palace there a fresco of La Pietà painted in 1538 by Stefano Veltroni, which he received 59 liras for. The tower has still got a lot of the former openings and in the upper side shows the faces of the public clock (the care of it was in the hands of a special “temperator”): the face of the clock in Corso Sangallo is lower than the the other two on the sides. The merlon and the bell gable with a single bell (remolded many times, the last one in 1954) linked to the clock mechanism.  Over there are some pictures of some of the saints belonging to the  local tradition   and some inscriptions on relief.